Friday, June 02, 2006

Nice Try, Sports Illustrated

This is getting a bit creepy. The author of the bogus Sports Illustrated piece about Eddie DeBartolo and Carmen Policy raiding the Raiders is back…with a bizarre “open letter” to Denise DeBartolo York! At this rate, Eddie might need to consider a restraining order.

The letter begs Denise to “give your brother back his football team.” See, I told you this was getting creepy. I wouldn’t concern myself with this missive except for the following excerpt: Back to Eddie for a moment: You may have seen my story in last week's SI --or perhaps you've read some of the reaction pieces, many of them irresponsibly reported, in which a quote from your brother expressing his desire to get back into the NFL, and even pondering the idea of buying the Raiders and moving them to L.A., is somehow proven to be "wrong." My initial thought: Denise reads Raider Take? Cool. Thanks for Jerry Rice.

As for our author, it sounds like he doth protest too much. Neither Raider Take nor the others said that Eddie’s wild NFL fantasies were proven wrong (a fantasy, by definition, cannot be proven wrong). We said that reporting these fantasies as viable was wrong. We said that minimizing Amy Trask’s rebuttal was wrong (as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Sports Illustrated, in all fairness, did contact Raiders CEO Amy Trask for comment. Unfortunately, Trask says, the magazine omitted much of what she had to say in response.” In all fairness, of course). We said that invoking Al Davis’s physical health to support a false premise was wrong.

Let’s review the relevant portion of the original piece:

DeBartolo, 59, says buying the Buccaneers would be his first choice. (He looked into purchasing them three years ago but was rebuffed by owner Malcolm Glazer.) But he and Policy -- they had a falling out shortly before DeBartolo left the 49ers but have repaired their relationship -- have contemplated other teams, including the Saints, and their interest in the Raiders is piqued by whispers that Davis, 76, is ill. He has been using a walker because of a leg ailment and did not show up at February's scouting combine or a recent minicamp. "For Al Davis to miss the combine, that's unusual," DeBartolo said.

The Raiders, for their part, say that everything is status quo. "Al Davis is as vital and vibrant as ever," says CEO Amy Trask. "The closest Eddie and Carmen will come to taking a look at the Raiders will be watching them on TV." Still, however Oakland plays out, it will take someone like DeBartolo to make things work in L.A…

However Oakland plays out? She just told you nothing is playing out. In other words, more credibility is given to the insupportable idea of convicted criminal Eddie DeBartolo preying on an allegedly feeble Al Davis than CEO Amy Trask confirming that it’s a bunch of bunk.

Finally, there's Carmen Policy himself, stating to the Oakland Tribune: "There's no chance of it happening, and we never really talked seriously about it."

If there’s no chance of it happening and they never talked seriously about it, then why treat it seriously in the pages of Sports Illustrated? Or, if you contend that Carmen is now lying, then save your ire for him, not us, and remember not to use liars and crooks as sources for future stories.

And most of all, remember that when you take irresponsible swipes at the Raider Nation, don't be surprised when the Raider Nation hits back. P.S. Thanks to Mad Stork 83 for tipping Raider Take off to the "open letter."

How many pictures of Eddie D does Silver have in his bedroom? Maybe a shrine to Eddie D secretly hidden in a cabinet? A picture of Silver and Eddie D in a locket that Silver keeps close to his heart? Or is he just the latest guy that Eddie D has bribed? Silver is probably cheaper than the governor of Louisiana.

How Pathetic! The haters will never cease. I must take you to task for thanking Denise for Jerry Rice. F*ck Jerry Rice, I said when we first signed him the only way I could stomach him is if we won the Super Bowl, since we did not it is a black eye for Raider history. Jerry Rice sucks!

Roy, it turned my stomach a bit, too, when the Raiders signed Jerry Rice, as I thought of him as a whiner (and, in some ways, still do). However, I believe that he was a big factor in 2001 and 2002, and I can't argue with results.

Also, while I hate the Niners, I do get a kick out of enrolling Lott, Rice and others in the Silver & Black for a few years. I like the pirate aspect of sailing across the bay and raiding the other team of impact players.

While I love raiding the whiners for players such as Garner, Stone, I want no part of career whiners such as Montana, Lott, Rice, but do to the new NFL, players do not usually stay on 1 team too long so not much of a concern anymore. I agree that he was a big contributor but we did not win the SB and I believe we would have a similar record without him. But what I hate more than anything is the Raiders claiming 1 or 2 year players such as Lott, Dickerson and soon Rice as "Raiders in the HOF," those guys weren't Raiders. Don't get me wrong I love Dickerson, but it cheapens the Real Raiders in the HOF.

Roy: I gotta agree with RT on the raiding the team across the bay theme.

Ronnie Lott was born to be a Raider and made the Pro Bowl in Silver'n'Black. Jerry Rice showed the Raider cast of thousands at WR how it is done in a way that Freddie B is now just now too to show - on the field.

I do agree with you that the listing of the likes of Eric Dickerson and James Lofton as "Raider HOFers" is a bad joke, since neither performed at a Pro Bowl level with the Raiders.

At least they don't have Discharger OT Ron Mix listed as a "Raider HOFer" anymore.

Rice as a Raider was hard to swallow at first. But Rice made one thing clear from the moment he signed with the Raiders: he was a 9er no more, it was all about the Silver and Black.

Did he whine? When you're the GOAT, you can whine. If you sold cars for a living, and you sold 100 cars for every 1 some other guy sold, you could get away with whining at work. When you're 40 and out-performing guys half your age, guys who were in diapers when you started as a pro, you can get away with whining.

Tim Brown whined too, but as #3 on the all-time receiving list, and, IMHO, the greatest Raider receiver of all time, we can cut him some slack.

Personally, I consider myself lucky to have had the chance to see the Gannon-Brown-Rice combo in person. An MVP QB and 2 HOF receivers, in Silver and Black.

Listing Dickerson et al as HOF Raiders is cheesy, but no more so than listing the Raiders as the winningest team in football and then not deciding not to count the years before Al Davis arrived. Or repeatedly bragging about signing Gannon as the greatest free agent signing in the history of the NFL, and then ignoring the signing of Jeff George, KFC, Larry Brown, "No Play" Ray Buchanon, etc. Sometimes you have to laugh at Al Davis' Reality Distortion Field.

Maybe Al needs to take a page from the playbook of Eddie D and George W and pay off a columnist to give him some good press.

Then there's another cheap shot at Al Davis to sell to Eddie D. Hope I'm not out of place posting this one.http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5642814

The self proclaimed "Football Czar" takes a shot saying, "And if Al Davis didn't exist, DeBartolo might make a suitable owner of the Raiders, a franchise beloved by Harley riders everywhere and ignored, for the most part, by corporate America." And then goes on to say that the Raiders aren't for sell, but you can imagine if they were, kind of run. He then takes a shot at Davis himself with this, "But an ugly lawsuit last year with the McGah family left Davis a little poorer and he apparently is looking for some new minority investors, considering the team's meager cash flow in Oakland. Even the hurricane-devastated Saints have sold more 2006 season tickets than the Raiders. But no one should interpret that seeking new investors in the Raiders translates to Mr. Davis selling out and retiring."I'm waiting for Al to pull through this, like he has done in the past, and force these Raider-haters to pen about them being champs again, to their distaste. I'm pulling for Al on this one, and I know he will make the Nation proud again!